Last week Robert and I took a vacation. It wasn't the vacation we intended to take - it wasn't the vacation we planned - perhaps it wasn't even the vacation we wanted. But it was the vacation we got, and, as I believe God has His hand on everything in our lives, it surely was the vacation He knew we needed.
Originally we were supposed to go on a cruise to the Bahamas. Robert found a good deal, and we had been planning to go for months. We wanted to have one vacation with just the two of us before the new baby comes and we can't really go anywhere for a while. (Nobody wants to take five children on a cruise ship. NOBODY. Can you imagine? I would spend every waking second and probably most of my sleeping ones trying to prevent one or all of them from getting lost or falling over the side. Oy. That is not a vacation!) So, we planned, we scheduled, we packed, we ran around frantically trying to find our passports that I had gone to tons of trouble to have expedited and then hidden carefully away from the children and then couldn't find the day before our trip...!
Finally all was ready and the day was here. The kids were packed up and sent off to Grammie's for their four-day "sleepover," which they were super excited about, and Robert and I boarded a plane bound for Ft. Lauderdale and our glorious four days of sun, ship, relaxation, and all the food we could eat. Or so we thought.
The first "bump" in the road was our flight getting delayed coming into Denver - all flights, actually, due to bad weather - which resulted in our flight to Ft. Lauderdale getting bumped back three hours, which meant we arrived at 2:15 am local time, give or take a few minutes. We trekked the deserted airport, got our rental car and directions, and drove out into the POURING rain to try to find our hotel. It was not terribly near the airport, but we finally arrived, got our room, and fell into bed to get a few hours sleep.
The next morning we had to rise early all the same, because we had a tour scheduled with the "Welcome Center" as part of the package deal we signed up with our cruise in order to get an inexpensive hotel room and rental car. Turns out the "Welcome Center" was most inaptly named. We arrived at 8:30, said "we're here for our tour," and were informed (quite testily) that the tour was actually located an hour away! Gee, thanks...that would have been nice to know when we called you to check in yesterday! Every single person who worked there was not only less than helpful, but quite rude about it. Finally we managed to get the tour rescheduled for Saturday after our cruise ship returned, retrieved our boarding passes, and set off for the Port of Palm Beach to get on board our ship!
After another hour drive, we arrived at the port to see the World's. Biggest. Ship. stretched out in front of us! I have never seen anything that massive, particularly up close. It dwarfed everything around it, including the "embarkation building" next to it, and made up feel like ants next to a mountain! Two tiny little ants who parked our car, went through security (security?? To board a ship?? It was nearly as thorough as TSA!) checked our luggage, and went to fill out our final paperwork to get on board. While Robert was writing, a tiny little Asian lady came up and smiled at me.
"Getting ready to get on the ship?"
"Yes," I smile back.
"Ah. I see you are expecting!" (gesturing to my burgeoning stomach)
"Yes, that's right."
"How far along are you?" (conversationally)
"Oh, about twenty five weeks."
"Oh." Her smile disappears. "Well, I'm very sorry to have to tell you, but we cannot allow pregnant women on board after twenty three weeks."
I blink. "Excuse me?"
Oh, yes, I heard her right. This small factor, which not ONE person from the cruise line OR the 'Welcome Center' had bothered to mention until we were actually boarding the ship, was company policy. No amount of discussion, reasoning, or appealing to more highly authorized personnel did any good. We were very apologetically but firmly refused entry to the ship and shown out of the building, one of us fighting back tears of frustration. You can probably guess which one! The four hours' sleep combined with the hormones weren't exactly helping.
We drove back to Ft. Lauderdale in defeat, tired, frustrated, stunned by this turn of events and wondering how to salvage our vacation.
To be continued...
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